Electoral Reform - restoring Integrity to First Past the Post. The Progressive Canadian Party.

Monday, 18 January 2016 12:29

Electoral Reform - restoring Integrity to First Past the PostThe Progressive Canadian Party

For Immediate Release January 18, 2016

Newmarket, Ont. - Progressive Canadian Leader, the Hon. Sinclair Stevens, and the PC Party today issued a statement on measures the PC Party National Council see as important to restoring confidence in the integrity of Canada's electoral system as a strongly preferred series of measures if Canadians are to continue to elect Members of Parliament to the Parliament of Canada, not parties or movements or followers of unaccountable party leaders.Electoral Reform: - Repeal Bill C-16, the fixed date election law that neutered the Opposition and tightened party control by all parties and party leaders, including the Prime Minister's Office.

- Elections Canada should be empowered to establish and moderate pre-writ period and writ period spending limits per party and per candidate. Elections should be about who we elect in each riding to be Members of Parliament in the Parliament of Canada, not about parties and money.

- If there is to be electoral reform it should end selection of constituency candidates controlled without cause by the corporate political party and party leader.

- Taking party names off of the ballot, which first occurred in the 1970s in Canada, would better encourage selection of Members of Parliament as constituency representatives.

- Resist pressure to submit to party proportional representation urged by PR advocacy groups. Regional minority disenfranchisement leading to separatism, ending Canada's parliamentary democracy by the people represented in parliament to favour control by party oligarchies are characteristics of all PR systems - these are fundamental changes to the very nature of parliament.

We must also respectfully advise the new prime minister of Canada, the Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, that the system of ranked ballots that he is said to prefer personally, while admirably suited to small groups like clubs and party conventions is not suitable to elections to the Parliament of Canada.

A campaign promise to make 2015 the last first-past-the-post (fptp) election in an election defined by voter intention to remove this government's predecessor is neither binding or a mandate to change how this country is governed; indeed, the intention of the previous government to do just that by other means was their undoing.

A Supreme Court of Canada reference is necessary on the constitutionality of any proposal brought forward for such fundamental change to Canada's democracy, with or without public consultation in citizen assemblies or other means. Even if any such proposal to change Canada's parliamentary democracy fundamentally is found to be constitutional, it is not enough to be within the basic law of Canada. Such fundamental change would require the further endorsement of a large majority of the citizen's of Canada, no less than did the Charlottetown Accord.

Our electoral system, freed of distortions of earlier electoral reforms is clear, simple, and democratic - unlike the alternatives, which are arbitrary, and commonly blindly party partisan.

We elect Members of Parliament to the Parliament of Canada, not parties, movements, or prime ministers.